How to Graduate from the Web Development Bootcamp

By Thinkful

Our goal is to get 100% of job-seeking graduates placed into a high quality development position. In order to meet that promise we need to be clear with students, and with ourselves, about what “graduation” means.

Have readable and maintainable code. Each student’s mentor will decide whether projects meet this requirement and give feedback on necessary improvements.

Demonstrate proficiency with a specific technology, or be a useful or interesting product demonstrating product development skills.

2. Publish a working draft of their portfolio to the web. This doesn’t need to be “complete”, but it does need to include:

Personal and contact information.

Links to GitHub and LinkedIn profiles.

The portfolio projects above.

3. Receive a recommendation from their mentor. To vouch for a student, mentors consider things like:

Whether they’d hire the student for their team.

Their assessment of the student’s technical skills as demonstrated in sessions and through the student’s portfolio work.

The student’s progress through the course material.

4. Engage with career services throughout your course. Specifically this means:

Attend 4 practice interviews every 4-6 weeks.

Complete a set of coding challenges and review your results with your mentor.

So far, every student who’s followed through on their commitment to the program has graduated within seven months. The average time to graduation has been 4.5 months. Some students choose to start looking for a job before they graduate, and in some cases have landed a job as quickly as their third month into the course.

When a student lands a job as a software engineer before meeting the graduation criteria, they often choose to stop taking the course. We automatically count them as graduates because they’ve accomplished what they set out to do with us.

To find out more about how Web Development can help you accomplish your goals, contact benjy@thinkful.com.